I shrugged. “Wenig.” A little.
“Sprichst du deutsch?” Do you speak German?
“Sehr Wenig.” A very little.
As I finished, the other three entered the room and the largest one, the leader (who had also spent no time trimming his tangled beard or plucking his overgrown eyebrows) eyed me hungrily.
Coyote turned toward him and said, “Der Amerikaner spricht Deutsch.” The American speaks German.
The beastly man, who resembled a grizzly more than a man and would have felt quite at home making Bear Mountain his permanent residence, shifted his gaze and landed it once again upon me. A smile stretched across his face and crinkled his eyes at the corners. He said something about me not being so stupid anymore, but his tone was thick with sarcasm.
He crossed the room and reached me in three large steps, placed his hands on the arms of the chair, and leaned forward so our noses almost touched. “So dass Sie klug sind, nachdem alle.” He definitely hadn’t spent any time primping this morning. His eyes were crusty, and his breath smelled like he’d soaked his socks in stale coffee then sucked on them.
I thought he was telling me I was smart after all, but since I wasn’t sure of his intentions, I remained silent and made no movements.
He leaned closer until our noses actually did touch. Looking into his eyes at that distance, only an inch or so away, I could finally distinguish between black pupil and deep brown iris. What I found in his eyes, in the depths of his pupils, the portal to the soul, was hate. Hate for freedom, hate for America, hate for me. His face twisted into what could only be described as a grimace and he roared, “Sind Sie schlauer als ich?” Are you smarter than me?
This time I thought it best to respond. I shook my head slowly and lost eye contact. I knew he was on the edge, balancing on that fine ridge between sanity and five-star lunacy. I had no idea what kind of brainwashing these Nazis had undergone or what hardships they’d suffered here in America no doubt cursing and blaming us for every chilly night, every stubbed toe, every splinter, every hunger pang. His rage and hatred had been building for years and now that he had an American in his grip, maybe four Americans, his boiling point had been reached. I had to walk carefully, like when Aaron and Henry and I used to shuffle across the frozen surface of our pond, sliding our feet inches at a time, testing the thickness of the ice.
The grizzly man slapped the arms of the chair then smacked my ear with an open hand. He growled something about the “others.” Dad and Pop and Henry? Or the residents of the house? I hadn’t thought about the residents before. The house was obviously lived in. Someone lived here, called the place home, before the Nazi quartet moved in and took over. Where were they? Was it a couple? A family? Or a hermit? Had they been killed?
Grizzly stepped away from me, and one of the bear brothers slipped a dagger from his belt and stood before me. He held the knife in the air, the blade glimmering in the morning light. Then, pressing it against the inside of my thigh, he ran the blade down my leg to the ankle, all the while keeping his lifeless eyes on me and smiling a dirty-toothed grin. Thankfully, he hadn’t pressed hard enough to cut, but it struck fear in me nonetheless. He could have filleted my leg like a catfish if he’d wanted to. After a few moments of indecision, my ear still stinging from the rap it had suffered, I felt the knife sawing around my ankle and realized he was cutting the rope, freeing my legs.
When he’d finished, he stood, replaced the knife in his belt, and barked in a deep voice, “Aufstehen!” Stand up.
On wobbly legs that were still numb from the knees down, I stood and balanced myself as if standing on stilts. The German, who was at least three inches taller than me, and whose shoulders out-spanned mine by a good six inches, grabbed a handful of my jacket behind my neck and pushed me forward. I stumbled across the room, almost losing my footing more than once, and exited. The other three followed behind. There was a short hallway—worn floorboards, barren walls—that led to another room on the other side of the house. Just before I crossed the threshold, the German shoved me again. I stumbled into the middle of the room and fell, landing hard on my side and sending a jolt of pain through my shoulders.
When I looked up I learned whom the “others” were. I was in a room with Dad and Pop and Henry.
17
I’ve seen my dad weathered before. Usually, after a full day of bailing hay under a blazing sun he looks anything but fresh. His hair is matted to his forehead, disheveled, and peppered with flecks of hay and dirt. His skin is leathery, shirt soaked through with sweat, and coveralls soiled with just about every substance found on a farm, from manure to corn dust. But when I looked at him, sitting on the floor, back against the wall, bound hands wedged behind his rear, weathered was not the right word. His pant leg was torn up to the knee, revealing a swollen ankle that didn’t look broken but severely sprained. His face was flushed and glistened with sweat. His cheek was swollen right below his left eye, and a line of dried blood streaked across his face from his left ear to his jaw line. With head resting against the wall, he made eye contact with me but didn’t say anything. His eyes widened and he shook his head slowly from side to side. If he was trying to silently communicate with me I didn’t get the message.
To Dad’s right was Pop. He too looked roughed up, though not as bad as his son. His right cheek was beginning to bruise and some of his white hair was matted with blood. Other than that, he looked like he had merely gone for a very long walk in the woods, which wasn’t far from the truth minus the little detail about being forcibly abducted by a rogue band of Nazi demons.
The worst of the three was Henry, seated, or rather propped, to Dad’s left. They’d worked Henry over good. Both eyes were bloody and swollen, and I couldn’t tell if they were open or closed. His lower lip puffed out on the right side and was a deep purple outlined with blackened blood. His shirt was torn open, and his chest peppered with blue and burgundy bruises. Supported by a chair identical to the one to which I was confined in the other room, he sat on the floor, head back against the wall.
I worked my way to a seated position and yelled at the Nazis, “What do you want from us! Why are you here? Go back to your own country.” Tears burned my eyes and blurred my vision. I tried to swallow but my throat protested. It was already occupied by sobs that were working their way to the surface. One escaped in a barked cry and the Germans laughed. This made me even angrier and more determined to stay alive. I was in no mood to amuse them, to be their circus clown. “I hope you go to hell! Hölle! All of you,” I shouted. My voice cracked with every syllable.
The leader approached me swiftly, hands clenched at his sides, and landed a boot in my side, near my kidney. The blow rocked me to my opposite side and sent a wave of nausea through my back and stomach. “Ruhig sein! Sei still, oder ich werde euch alle töten!” he screamed. He ordered me to keep quiet or he’d kill us all.
Pop, who was apparently aware of the situation, coughed loudly and let a string of some of the foulest cuss words I’d ever heard fly from his mouth, like a flock of black birds bursting forth from a cage in a flurry and spasm of wings and feathers. Pop was not the cussing type. He was straighter than a shovel’s handle, and I’d never before heard an expletive cross his lips. But I knew it wasn’t really Pop vomiting vulgarities, it was the Alzheimer’s speaking for Pop.
The leader, who either understood some English or interpreted Pop’s language by his tone, took one large step toward Pop and kicked him hard in the hip, spraying the room with his own brand of German curses, not to mention a steady mist of saliva.
Pop howled in pain and cussed again for which the big German rewarded him with another boot to the hip. Pop caught on quick and clamped his mouth tight, scrunching his eyes and cheeks behind the pain.
The other two over-sized Germans, leaning against the doorjamb, laughed and mocked Pop’s moans.
The leader then walked over to Henry, squatted beside him, and grabbed a handful of hair from atop his head. He jerked Henr
y’s head upright and landed a loud smack on his right cheek.
“Stop it,” Dad snapped. “Haven’t you done enough?”
The German ignored him and smacked Henry again.
Henry’s left eye opened a little, just a slit between two purplish bulges, like two halves of a plum. Behind the slit I could see the white of his eye and knew he’d seen me. His eye rolled back, and the German smacked him again, saying something I couldn’t translate and probably didn’t want to. Henry’s eye appeared again and shifted to me. I stared at his pupil, willing it to focus on me.
“Please,” Dad said. “Please stop.”
I’d never heard my father beg for anything in my life, but if there was a time to start I supposed this was a good one.
In a motion so quick I almost missed it, the German struck Dad, closed handed, on the cheek. Dad paused, spit a bloody wad on the floor, then glared at the grizzly man. The leader then leaned in close to Henry’s face, looked at me, then back at Henry. “Hier ist dein Bruder, dein Retter,” he hissed. Here is your brother, your savior. “Kann er sie jetzt noch retten?” Can he save you now?
I was amazed at how much of my German was coming back to me. I was living proof that one didn’t have to pay full attention in class and pass every test to retain the material. Learning could happen in a variety of ways, even in the head-on-the-desk-thinking-about-anything-but-German way.
Henry mumbled something through his swollen lip, which earned him another firm smack to the cheek.
“Stop it,” I yelled. Then tried it in German. “Hör auf!”
The leader perked up and released his hold on Henry’s head. He stood, slipped his dagger from behind his back, and circled me two times. Like a lion stalking his prey. I said a quick prayer asking for an angel to shut this lion’s mouth. On the third trip he threw the knife down so its point stuck in the wood flooring inches from my leg. I flinched and let out an involuntary scream, which brought on another round of guffaws from the two German stooges by the doorway. Coyote looked on with intense interest but didn’t laugh, didn’t even crack an amused smile. The burly Nazi bent down, worked the knife free, keeping his eyes on me the whole time, and slowly slipped it back into his belt.
When he stood again, he towered over me like an angry grizzly perched on his hind legs. His stalking lion imitation was over, he was back to being a bear. “Sie sind dabei, hier zu sterben, American.” You’re going to die here, American. His voice was calm as if he’d administered death sentences all the time and as if they were no more to him than announcing when breakfast was ready.
He then turned and waved the other three out of the room, following them.
I held my breath as our captors left, shifting my eyes between them and my kinsmen. Their heavy footfalls followed the hallway to the staircase and descended the steps to the first floor.
18
When the sound of the Germans had lowered to a distant murmur of voices and muffled clump of boots, I righted myself and scooted over to Pop. His face was still etched with pain, deep lines drawn around his mouth and eyes. He breathed heavy, and as I drew closer I noticed his cheeks were wet with tears.
“Pop, you okay?” I said, hoping with all hope that he would recognize me and have most, if not all, of his mental faculties.
He opened his eyes and looked at me blankly and, for a brief moment, thinking he didn’t know me from a German chocolate salesman, my heart lost its footing in my chest and sank into my stomach. Then, as if his eyes were the darkened windows of a vacant home and someone just walked in and flipped the light switch, he brightened and said, “Billy boy, you’re okay.” He pursed his lips and swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat and his chest stuttered as he filled his lungs with a painful breath. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, Pop. I’m fine.” I tried to force a smile but couldn’t get it to reach my eyes. “Just a little banged up is all. How ‘bout you? You okay?”
Pop tried to take another deep breath but it was cut short by a wince and a short moan. “That Kraut thinks he broke me, but he didn’t.”
I wanted to tend to his wounds, care for him like he had cared for me so many times when I was young and sick and he’d come to see me and pat my forehead with a cool washcloth and read me books. But in my present state, with hands still bound behind my back, my only chance at caring for him was with my feet and seeing that I was still wearing my boots and had the pedal dexterity of a walrus, I’d have to forgo the doctoring for now. I glanced at my dad then back at Pop.
“He’s hurt,” Pop said. “They beat him. Henry too.”
“We’ll get out of here, Pop,” I said, more for myself than for Pop. I knew sooner or later, and most likely sooner, Pop would once again recede into his alternate reality and be oblivious to our dilemma.
Pop shook his head. “Don’t count on it boy. These Krauts are mean buggers and they got somethin’ to prove.” He looked at me like he had a hundred times before when Dad would make some burning comment about me being more suited for women’s work than men’s, a look that said he was sorry for my Dad’s attitude, that he hadn’t raised him like that, that he should know better than to treat his own son that way. Tears clouded his eyes even though he tried to smile.
“What do they want with us?”
Pop swallowed again. “Information. They have no idea how the war’s goin’. They don’t even know it’s over and that they lost.” He glanced at Dad. “They really pressed your father and brother but they didn’t give ‘em anything.”
That explained Dad’s and Henry’s condition. Pride swelled in my chest. I wanted to shout again at the Germans, tell them they have no business messing with red-blooded American farmers. We were leagues above them. At least Dad and Henry were. “We’ll get out of here, Pop.”
“You always were positive. Attitude is everything, right?” He raised his eyebrows then let them fall again, a shrug of sorts. “I don’t know if attitude will get us out of this one, Billy. There’s no light at the end of this tunnel. I know you’re a prayin’ man. Pray for a miracle. We need one.”
The word man stuck in my mind like peanut butter to the roof of my mouth. It was the first time he or anyone else ever called me a man. I was always boy or son, an inferior, never a peer. But he was right. The situation looked pretty dire. It wasn’t as if I was going to pull a Samson and tear the ropes that bound my hands and single-handedly slay our Nazi captors with the sole of my boot. Prayer was our only hope.
But I didn’t feel like praying. Not right then anyway. I needed to check on Dad and Henry, I needed to clear my mind and gather my scattered thoughts. Then I’d pray.
“Pop, listen to me,” I said, holding his attention with a drilled stare. “We are going to get out of here alive. We are. I’m gonna check on Dad and Henry.”
He nodded, eased his head back against the wall, and slowly closed his eyes. I wondered if he was drifting off to his alter reality, that faraway world populated by strangers and uncharted lands. If he was, that might be for the best too. This world didn’t have much to offer at the moment.
I left Pop alone in his otherworld and scooted my hind end along the floor toward my dad. His ankle was swollen but not grotesquely. From mid-shin down it was puffed and red but probably not more than a run-of-the-mill sprain would produce. If pressed, he could no doubt walk on it, though it certainly wouldn’t be a pain-free stroll in the woods.
To Dad’s left, Henry moaned. I scooted a few feet toward Henry and leaned close to him. “Henry,” I said. “Can you hear me?”
Henry lifted his head and for the first time I noticed a faint bluish bruise circling his neck just under the jaw. The Nazis had choked him, torture by strangulation. Or maybe it was how they had subdued him long enough to bind and beat him. “Henry. It’s Billy. Just nod or moan or something if you can hear me.”
Henry’s chin dipped ever so slightly and his lips moved again. “Billy.” His voice was thin and tinny. “Why’d you come back?”
I
leaned in closer and lowered my voice. “I had to Henry. I couldn’t just leave you here. I thought . . .” My voice trailed off. What exactly had I been thinking? Did I really think I could take on a couple of Nazis with what I had? What did I expect to do? Blind them with the flashlight then bludgeon them with my canteen? “I . . . I couldn’t leave.”
Henry’s left eye fluttered open and focused on me. He swallowed and the labor involved in getting his esophageal muscles to contract showed on his face in the form of a strained grimace. “You have water?”
Had. I had water until I went and got myself seized by Hitler’s henchmen. “No. I don’t.”
Henry tried to swallow again but his Adam’s apple refused to bob. “So thirsty.”
I lowered my head and rested it on Henry’s shoulder for a moment before lifting it again and looking into my brother’s slit of an eye. “Hang on Henry. You hear me? Just hang on. I’m gonna get us out of here. You hear? I’ve got a plan.” I really had no plan other than to stay alive but quickly deduced that Henry needed something to hold on to, some hope to infuse his battered soul and shed even a glimmer of light on the shadow of despair that had moved into this room. Something to dispel some of the darkness.
“Mo—” Henry’s tongue, swollen from thirst, slipped out and ran along his lower lip. “Moses.”
He was delirious, slipping in and out of reality. As for Moses I didn’t know if he was speaking of our horse or the prophet of old, that leader of the Hebrews who went toe to toe with Pharaoh. When we were kids, Henry shared a common thorn with the Old Testament hero, he stuttered. During everyday situations it wasn’t so bad, but put Henry in front of a class of his peers or pinch him in a vice of stress, and he couldn’t link three words together without adding uncountable syllables while performing facial gymnastics. Once he learned Moses also had a proclivity for lingual calisthenics, the white-haired prince-turned-shepherd-turned-leader became his champion. Henry knew what it was like to be “slow of speech” and admired Moses for what he’d accomplished. As he matured, Henry’s stuttering waned, but his admiration for the writer of the Pentateuch never faltered.
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